NEW BRITAIN, CT -- An opinion article penned by Dave Davison, former president of the American Savings Foundation, encourages indivdual giving, reviews why individuals give to charity, and the discusses the possible affects of the new Federal tax laws on indivdual charitable giving.
NEW YORK, NY -- Starting this fall, and well into the future, medical students at New York University will get free tuition. In a few years, shiny new facilities will welcome cancer patients in Atlanta and brain researchers at Stanford. The announcements about these developments credit generous philanthropists, but fail to mention who else is footing much of the bill: American taxpayers. Like most charitable giving, health care philanthropy is tax-deductible. When wealthy people give away millions of dollars, their tax bills go down. But that leaves the rest of us either to pick up the slack or go without the investments that our government could have made with those funds.
WASHINGTON, DC -- The consumer orgies of Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday have a rapidly growing nonprofit rival: Giving Tuesday, which celebrates its seventh year today. Begun by a coalition hoping to reinvigorate giving in the United States during the holiday season, Giving Tuesday has turned into a philanthropic juggernaut: Last year, the day moved at least $300 million to nonprofits by mobilizing hundreds of thousands of people, many of them infrequent donors, to give to charities of their choosing. Giving Tuesday champions the welcome spirit of ordinary donors and the amazing diversity of American charity. But when it comes to philanthropic giving in the United States, it proves the exception to a stubborn rule.
NEW YORK, NY -- The Internal Revenue Service announced today the official estate and gift tax limits for 2019: The estate and gift tax exemption is $11.4 million per individual, up from $11.18 million in 2018. That means an individual can leave $11.4 million to heirs and pay no federal estate or gift tax, while a married couple will be able to shield $22.8 million. The annual gift exclusion amount remains the same at $15,000. For the ultra rich, these numbers represent planning opportunities. For everybody else, they serve as a reminder: Even if you don’t have a taxable estate, you still need an estate plan.
HARTFORD, CT -- CCP gives an update about news of proposed regulations that would curtail the right to assemble on federal land.
HARTFORD, CT -- Conventional wisdom is that the total price charged by the state and its local governments in Connecticut is one of the most burdensome in the country. A common measure upon which this conclusion is based is the total amount we residents pay in state and local taxes, relative to our aggregate personal income, i.e., our capacity to pay. On this basis, the Tax Foundation tells us that Connecticut ranks either first or second highest in the nation, depending on which of two analytic models it uses. However, taxes are not the only price paid to governments. Residents also pay a number of fees and other charges, separate and distinct from taxes. By Bill Cibes